


Star Chef

by AphantaRay



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: Cooking, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 21:20:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20346886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AphantaRay/pseuds/AphantaRay
Summary: In year 3 of a post-Cleaved world, there’s nothing to stand between Star and the delicious tyranny of microwave dinners. Can Marco help her save herself from a life of dietary deviance?





	1. Vegetal

**Author's Note:**

> Half recipe, half fluff. My first stab at this flavor of writing. Follow the recipe parts at your own risk.

Star kicked her door open, dropped her bag on the floor, and lazily flumped on her bed with a groan, “Marcooo… I’m so tired…”

Marco followed her into the room and quietly shut the door. He was carrying a heavy book bag with him, which he promptly dropped on her desk.

Marco had agreed to join Star for a night of homework crunching. She had recently been having trouble getting stuff done on time, so Marco suggested they could work together to keep her on task. Unfortunately, that had not been going so well.

While Star was kicking off her boots and pants and curling up under the covers, Marco was methodically emptying the contents of his backpack onto Star’s desk. A three-ring binder with meticulously color-coded tags on the pages. A pencil. A sharpener. A spare pencil. A textbook on statistical analysis (also colorfully tagged for easy reference). His trusty eight-year-old laptop which worked just fine and he didn’t understand why everyone made such a big deal about it. Just because the hinges were broken and the battery only lasted for ten minutes and it got hot enough to cook eggs didn’t make it any less useful.

Marco turned around from the desk and felt a wave of disappointment when he saw Star had succumbed to the comfort of her bed. He was hoping to get Star through some of her first-year coursework today, but by now he was getting pretty used to the flow of these homework sessions – and they usually ended before Star ever cracked open a textbook. But that wouldn’t stop him from getting his own work done tonight! Even if Star was looking pretty cute all bundled up over there. No no no, focus Marco, be strong.

“Hey, come on, no naps. Let’s do at least one assignment before you crash.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“Star Butterfly—”

“Ugh not the mom voice.”

“—_Star Butterfly_ you get out of that bed this instant.”

“Okay, fine.” But she didn’t move.

“Star.”

“After a teensy nap! A little one.” Star poked a hand out from under the covers and pinched the empty air for emphasis, “Bite sized.”

Marco threw his hands in the air and turned back to the desk, “Fine. Don’t blame me when you’re stuck begging your prof for an extension.”

“I would never. You’re a blameless angel.” Star wrapped herself up even tighter and settled in with her phone to waste some time, peeking over at Marco while he worked diligently. “If you get sick of work, come to bed.”

“I probably won’t! Lots to do! Wish you could join me!”

As much as Marco would have loved to abandon his post to join Star under the covers, he knew he had to get at least a little work done. And to be honest, he relished the opportunity to work on his research papers and lab reports. He was focusing on biology and chemistry with a bit of psychology – building up to a medical school application after next year – and it was _a blast_.

The air was filled with the tapping of keys and the flipping of pages, mixed in with the sound of Star watching videos and giggling at her feed. “Marco come look at this it’s hilarious.”

“Nope! Focusing!”

“Boooo.”

After a good half hour of dedicated study, Marco was beckoned away from his work by Star. “Hey, wouldn't it be nicer to sit in a big comfy bed while you work?”

“Star you're radiating enough adorability over there that it’s already hard to focus – even at this distance. If I get any closer, that’ll be it. Game over.”

“But what if… you think of it as _resistance training_. I bet there’s a bunch of cute girls in your classes, right? Just think: if you can focus through this intense level of close-proximity high-intensity cuteness, you’ll be super strong when you’re taking your exams next to some distracting babe. You’ll be unstoppable.”

Marco entertained the idea for a moment, but shook his head, “Nope. Not buying it. Gotta focus.”

Star grumbled and relented for a few minutes, then interrupted Marco’s work again for another attempt, “You know about osmosis?”

“I sure hope so after three years of bio.”

“So let’s do this studying stuff by osmosis! If you come work over here, I won’t even need to do my homework, right? All that extra knowledge of yours will just osmose through the membrane of the blanket.”

“Star. I will not give in to your siren song.”

Something hit the back of Marco’s head and for a moment he thought that Star’s grumpy stare was manifesting as physical pain. But no, it was actually a volley of cereal bits pinging him in the skull and bouncing to the floor.

“Hey!”

Star was sitting up, still wrapped up in her blankets. She had her fist buried in a box of emergency bedside Captain Blanche, ready to unleash another volley. Defiantly she proclaimed, “If I can’t _seduce_ you with sugar, then I will _destroy_ you with sugar.” Another handful of sweet bullets rained down on Marco’s head.

“Okay! Stop! Geez. What’s with you today?”

“I want snuggles, Marco. I will _get_ snuggles.”

“Okay, I get it, I get it.” Marco relented and moved his homework operation over to Star’s bed. He sat cross-legged on the duvet beside her and set his textbook open on his thigh while he leaned forward to type. Star immediately curled around him and settled in to nap while he worked on his papers.

But, as Marco feared, it was only a few minutes before Star sleepily reached out to kidnap his left hand from its duty at the keyboard. She pulled it towards her and held it lovingly against her face.

“Hey, come on, I need that.”

Star dozily mumbled, “Resistance training…”

Marco sighed and resigned himself to working with only one hand. While he typed away at his paper, he caressed her cheeks and smiled. She was just too adorable, darn it, and now his productivity was cut in half. “Why are you so tired these days?”

Star responded groggily without opening her eyes. “I’unno. Just feeling garbagey.”

“Are you eating alright? Getting lots of sleep?”

“I am an excellent eater and a master of the sleeping arts, thank you.”

“I mean, like, are you eating vegetables?”

“Yeah totally. Totally eating vegetables, for sure. Like uh… potatoes, and corn, and… uh… chicken.”

“Chicken isn’t a vegetable, Star, no matter what your dad says.”

Star waved her hands philosophically in the air. “That’s not for you and me to decide, Marco. That’s a question for science and the wisest of your gods.”

“The gods are probably not going to chime in on that one, and I’m _studying_ that science. It says chickens be meat.”

“Well Dr. Science Wizard, you’re not citing any papers, so it sounds to me like it’s still up for debate. And even if chicken is out, I’m still getting my fill of chunky tubers and super grains.”

“Uh huh.” Marco took note of the discarded junk food packaging laying around Star’s room. “These wouldn’t be tuber and grain _chips_ by any chance, would they?”

“Hmm…_ May_-be.” Star waited, eyes still closed, seemingly hoping Marco would change the subject. “You're giving me that look, I can feel it. Those mom eyes.”

Marco mussed up her hair and scolded her, “You can’t just eat garbage.”

“It’s not my fault garbage tastes so good! Maybe if salad didn’t taste like a fistful of gross leaves ripped off a sickly tree, I would eat that instead. I mean let’s be honest: vegetables just aren’t trying very hard to be eaten. Put in an effort, broccoli and friends.”

“You know you can just make your own food, right? Make it as good as you want? There are a ton of recipes online and stuff.”

“Well first of all, that sounds like a whole lot of work. Second of all, I don’t know how to cook.”

Didn’t she? Marco tried to recall all the times he’d had Star in the kitchen while they were preparing dinner together. And when he thought about it, she was usually just washing things and goofing off, wasn’t she? Had she even used a cutting board before? Had she even _boiled water_ before? He hadn’t really thought about it, but she had grown up with cook staff making every meal. Not too surprising she hadn’t spent much time alone in a kitchen.

“How about this: we’ll find a nice easy recipe, go buy some ingredients together, and I’ll help you cook it. It’s less work if we do it together, right?”

Star grumbled a bit before she agreed that it would probably be tolerable if Marco was helping.

Marco closed his textbook and stacked it with his notes on the bedside table. “I can take a break from work. Want to watch a cooking show? Get some ideas?”

“I do not.”

“I know this fun one, it’s really intense, I think you’ll like it. _Death Match Kitchen_. The chefs have to navigate a deadly obstacle course to get to their ingredients and the oven. Spikes, flaming knives, spinning blades, dire beast pits – it’s pretty exciting.”

Star’s eyes perked up a little bit, “Fine. I will endure a single episode – _if_ you stay in bed with me for a nap after.”

Marco figured he could finish his homework tomorrow, and this would definitely help get Star a little more pumped about cooking. “Deal.”


	2. Pasta al Pomodoro

The next day, Star was feeling pretty pumped to go shopping for dinner. She and Marco had ended up binge-watching a whole season of _Death Match Kitchen_ the night before, and she was hooked. There was an episode where everyone had to exclusively use swords to prepare everything – no pots or pans, no utensils or bowls. Even the finished meal had to be served on a sword. The winner made a swordfish platter with a side salad of tiny swords that she’d somehow crafted using spinach and some weird food science that even Marco couldn’t explain. The human judges said it tasted awful, the monster judge loved it, and that chef was the only one who wasn’t hospitalized by the grueling obstacles, so she won by default. Star was gripping Marco’s arm and cooing with excitement the whole episode.

Marco was being very boring and trying to reel in her expectations, “We’re gonna keep it simple today, okay? Play it nice and safe.”

“What? No come on, let’s do something fun. I want to get a blowtorch and _flambé_ some stuff.”

“Absolutely not. Here’s the plan: grilled chicken pomodoro. It’s basically just pasta, tomatoes, oil, and herbs.”

“That is like _all_ vegetables, Marco, please.”

“Okay how about _steak_ pomodoro. We can make a nice balsamic reduction for it.”

“I don’t know what a ‘balsamic reduction’ is, but I accept your concession.”

Marco tried his best to explain the art of a reduction sauce to Star but she wasn’t really that interested. They wandered around the food market, going from stand to stand to compare prices and quality before looping around and picking out the best they could find. Marco showed Star the way-too-many different kinds of tomatoes, what they were used for, and how to check them for ripeness and quality. Star still wasn’t sure she was doing it right when she picked out what she thought were the best ones for their meal, but Marco told her you can only learn this stuff by doing it, so she tried not to worry about it. They grabbed a few onions, garlic cloves, and basil to round out the vegetal ingredients.

When they were coming up on the butcher shop, Marco opened his mouth to explain how to pick out a good steak, but Star promptly shushed him, “Marco please, you are in the company of a Johansen. I’m pretty sure I know how to pick out a hunk of meat.” But when Star got up to the display, the options were a little daunting. She knew what good meat looked like for sure – soft muscle mixed up all nice with fat – but she had no idea what the different words for the cuts meant. And frankly none of this meat looked as good as the stuff her dad cooked. She eventually pointed to what the little black sign said was, “A… ‘nigh’ strip? Uh… two… two of those?”

The butcher looked over at Marco with a look in his eye and a smirk on his face that didn’t sit well with Star. She called the man’s attention back to her with a snap, “Hey!” She gestured at Marco, “This guy doesn’t know a good piece of meat from a leather shoe. Now give me two of those nigh strip steaks or we’re going somewhere else.”

“Yes ma’am. Two ‘nigh’ strips.” He wrapped up two thick cuts of New York strip and put them on the scale, “That’s $22.57.”

Star slammed $25 on the table, took the package, and left without her change.

When they’d walked a fair distance from the shop, Marco asked if she was okay. She realized she was walking pretty aggressively and tried to calm down. “That guy was being real rude.”

“Yeah. I mean that’s true, he was definitely being rude. But uh… And I hate to bring it up, but ‘NY’ isn’t ‘nigh’. It stands for ‘New York’.”

“New York? Like, that place on the _other side of the continent_? Why would I know that?”

“I think most people who grew up on Earth know what NY stands for. You can probably tell from all the movies, but New York is kind of a big deal here. And, you know, you pass for human pretty well. People probably just assume you’re from around here.”

“Just spell it out like a normal person, butchers!”

“That’s a fair point.”

Star sighed and shrugged it off, “At least I got some good meat.”

Marco smiled and joked, “Looks like a leather shoe to me. You gonna cook it?”

“Uhhh I don’t know. Might need a little help with that. The last time I made a steak it got very crunchy.”

“‘Crunchy’ is definitely not a word I want describing my steak.”

“Are we doing this at your place?”

“That’s the plan, unless you can get Moon to close the royal kitchen for a private dinner. I asked my folks to take little MP out for dinner tonight, so we’ve got free reign in there.”

“I bet I could get my mom on board. She’s always on me about eating ‘properly’. She threatened to take the microwave away, Marco! ‘Don’t take after your father, dear.’ But whatever! He’s living his best life. Some nerve.”

“Okay but Star please actually don’t take cues from River on your diet.”

“I’ll do what I want, mom! And today I just happen to want my boyfriend to show me how to cook some weird tomatoro thing.”

“Pomodoro.”

“Pomodoro, tomatoro.”

When they got to the Diaz residence, it was empty as expected. They dropped their groceries on the counter, then took a few minutes to settle in and pour some cold drinks. Marco took an apron off the wall and threw it to Star.

He admired how it looked on her, “Oh, you make that look real cute.”

Star smiled, “Oh stop. Aprons are so dorky.”

“Not as dorky as walking around with food stains all over your shirt.”

On the fridge, Marco had hung a few pages of the recipe they would be following. He had crossed out a few instructions and written a few notes in the margins as well. Then, double and triple checking the recipe for reference, he put Star to work pulling the remaining ingredients out of the pantry.

Star was instantly enamored with the Diaz pantry when she stepped inside. The little room was filled with wonderful smells and dozens of jars with colorful powders, whole dried peppers, and various pickled things. It was also decked out with delicious snacks. She could just bail. Eat some chips. Microwave a mac-and-cheese thing. No, she shook her head. She was going to do this. But as fantastic as the pantry was, almost nothing was labelled and very little of it was familiar to her. It was a little daunting.

Star called back to Marco who was waiting the kitchen and with the ingredient list, “I don’t know where anything is!”

“That’s fine, just keep looking. Getting familiar with your pantry is an essential part of being a good cook.”

“What am I looking for? Penny?”

“Penne. Bumpy tubular pasta. Should be in a big jar.”

Star grabbed a jar from the top shelf and leaned out the pantry with it, “This?”

“Yup. Next up, crushed pepper flakes. They look like big red and orange sparkles. Tall plastic container.”

“Got it!”

“And olive oil. Kind of greenish-yellow liquid in a jug.”

Star returned to the kitchen with her arms full and feeling proud at having navigated her first challenge. “Next time, throw some spike traps in there to keep it interesting.”

With all the ingredients on the counter, Marco went over the recipe.

“The key to cooking is good prep and good timing. The rest is easy, just mixing things together. We’re using a pan, so the steak will only take a few minutes. Pasta takes ten minutes. And we can probably get the sauce ready in the time it takes to get the pasta cooked. So we’ll prep everything, get the pasta cooking, put the sauce together, then get the steak on the pan. Make sense?”

Star nodded. It mostly made sense.

“And by ‘we’ I mean ‘you’.”

“What?”

“I’m just here to supervise and keep you from starting any fires. Just go through the recipe and let me know when you find something weird.”

Star looked over the instructions. A few words were… less than familiar. _Al dente_, _sauté_, _simmer_. Yeah sure. She totally knew what all those words meant. She sighed. She’d hoped she could look even a little cool in front of Marco, but…

Pasta. She’d done pasta before. Kind of. And she could at least start with something she was confident in. She looked at the jar of penne. It had a little instruction guide taped to it that said the cook time was ten minutes. She poured some into a bowl, then went to put it in the microwave.

Marco, who was leaning against the counter casually and watching, asked Star before she could get the bowl in the machine, “Whatcha up to there?”

“I’m making the pasta, obviously.”

“You uh… you know how to make pasta?”

“A-doy, Marco, you just take it out of the package and put it in the microwave for however long it says.” Star shoved the bowl of dry penne in the microwave, closed the door, and set it to cook for ten minutes. She turned around looking proud. “Easy. Done this a million times.” The microwave whirred confidently, and Star turned her attention back to the recipe.

“Okay next up… chopping onions.” She paused, noticing that Marco had crossed his arms and rested his chin on his fist like a skeptical scientist watching the results of an experiment unfold. “What? Why the look?”

Marco silently pointed at the microwave, which was smoking.

“Nooo! No! Why?” Star leapt to the microwave and ripped open the door, letting a thick cloud of smoke pour out. She pulled out the bowl and found the penne noodles partly burnt, and not at all cooked. “Why??”

“You really have been living on junk food and frozen dinners, huh?”

“Shut up! The microwave has never let me down before.” Star frantically opened a window and tried to blow the smoke out of the room.

Marco mused, “I mean you could _probably_ cook pasta in a microwave if you added water first. But uh… let’s do it the old fashioned way and just boil some water on the stove, okay?”

Boil water. Sure. How hard could that be? She checked the recipe for hints, and upon closer inspection it did actually say to start out the recipe by getting some salty water boiling in a large pot. She looked all over the kitchen for a large pot. After a dozen wrong cupboards and Marco refusing to just _tell her_ where they were, she found a pile of pots and pans under the counter. She pulled a few out, picked the biggest pot in the bunch, then started filling it with water. Marco sat on the counter and whistled while he watched.

“This _is_ the right pot, right?”

“Oh, I mean there’s not really a _wrong_ pot. That one’s a stock pot. Usually for making big batches of soup or chili or whatever. You might have a little trouble seeing inside while it’s cooking.”

“Well it said a large pot!”

“Maybe a ‘medium’ pot then?”

Star grumbled and switched over to one that was the next size down. It looked like the kind of thing you’d take as a helmet when playing around. She filled it to the brim with water and put it on the stove, then she noticed Marco had a weird look on his face.

“What!”

“Boiling water gets kind of animated, you probably want to leave some space for it to bubble. Also you’re going to be adding a bunch of pasta to it, so the water level’s going to rise, right?”

She stomped her foot down, feeling just about ready to dunk Marco’s head in the sink. “Marco! You need to guide me better!”

“Struggling through it and making mistakes is the best way to learn, though.”

She exasperatedly gestured back and forth between the two of them with her hand, “What is this? What’s going on here? Are you Glossarycking me?”

Marco’s face reflected a sudden realization. “Oh. I am, aren’t I?”

“You are! You can’t just sit there and watch me screw up! Just tell me this stuff _before_ I do it wrong!”

“Alright, alright, sorry. I don’t know why, but I figured you’d enjoy puzzling through it.”

“I don’t! No puzzles! Just show me. Like a normal person.”

Marco changed his tactics. He got up and stood near Star while she worked, offering kind and patient guidance, “You picked a good pot there. Fill it halfway with water, then throw a little fistful of salt in there and put it on the stove. Make sure you check the burner. Look at the little icons there to see which one you’re turning on. Put it on max and cover the pot.”

“Got it.” Finally. This was much better. “Thank you.”

Marco led her with careful instructions to set up the cutting board so it wouldn’t slip and helped her pick out a good knife. “You know how to use a knife?”

Star scoffed a bit, “Marco please, I spent years training in the art of the blade. Of _course_ I know how to use a knife.”

“Okay. I mean this might be a little different though—”

Star was feeling a little insulted. Sure, she didn’t know about making pasta on a stove, but if there’s one thing she knew, it was swordsmanship. And what is a knife but a tiny sword? “—Look it says ‘chop’ right here. I _know_ how to chop.” Star assertively slammed an onion on the board, then raised the knife in the air and brought it down with a powerful two-handed swing, slicing the onion perfectly in half. And splitting the cutting board in two. And denting the knife on the counter. Star paused for a moment to take in the carnage, then delicately placed the knife on the counter and brought her hands to her eyes with embarrassment. She took a deep breath and then let out a timid apology.

Marco blinked and stared in awe.

“Okay but look, that… that wasn’t my fault. The cutting board is way too weak.” She nudged the two pieces back together. “Can we glue it? We can just glue it.”

“Don’t worry about it, dude, we have extra cutting boards, it’s fine.” Marco pulled another slab of wood out from a cupboard and replaced the broken board on the counter. He lifted up the knife and marveled at the damage. “Wow. Just blasted this German steel, huh? You’ve got some guns on you. Here,” he handed her another knife with a similar shape, then set the disfigured one aside. “I’ll just fix that one up later, it’s no big deal.”

Star dropped her shoulders, let out a little sigh of defeat, and gave up on trying to look cool. She was so out of her element. “So… chopping. Different with knives.”

“Yeah, you keep the knife on the board the whole time and just kind of rock it back and forth.” Marco took the knife from Star and showed her how the knifework should look, then handed it back to her. “Try it without anything on the board first.”

Star mimicked what she saw Marco doing, and he told her she was doing good, which felt like a huge relief after nearly destroying the kitchen twice.

Marco continued, “Tomatoes and onions are probably bad vegetables to start with, they’re kind of tricky to handle. Let’s do a carrot first.”

Star glanced over at the ingredient list Marco had printed off, “The recipe doesn’t have any carrots, though.”

“Nah, it’ll just be a nice snack while we wait for stuff to cook.”

Marco took a few carrots from the fridge, washed them off, then put one on the cutting board. “Just keep the knife in one place, rock it back and forth, and push the carrot through. Go slow.”

“Okay.” Star did as he said, practicing moving the knife up and down first, then slowly sliding the carrot under the blade until it got too close to her fingertips. “Uh. This feels… a little dangerous…”

“Yeah, let’s fix up your hands here.” Marco stood behind her, his chest pressed delicately against her back, and reached around her to adjust her fingers, “Cat paws. Keep your fingers curled in. Tuck your thumb under and push with that. Make sure your knuckle is always touching the side of the knife. Don’t lift it too high. And hold the blade of the knife with your finger and thumb to get more control.”

Star felt a little flushed with Marco wrapped around her like this, speaking so surely, keeping her safe… It was comforting. She leaned back into him a bit and pretended to be lost. “Uh I don’t… I don’t think I get it, can you show me?”

“Sure,” Marco said, taking over both the blade and the carrot from Star. He cut a few slices while she watched, then returned the knife. “Okay, you cut, I’ll move the carrot.”

“Uh that seems…”

“It’s cool, just go slowly, you’ll see.”

Star uneasily took the knife and started slowly chopping the air. Marco rested his knuckles against the blade, then showed her how he was pushing the carrot forward with his thumb. And to Star’s amazement, she was _not_ slicing Marco’s fingers to pieces.

“Easy, right? Alright, it’s all you now.” Marco let her take over the whole show. He hugged her chest and rested his chin on her shoulder while she made the attempt. It was only _mildly_ distracting.

And sure enough, after Marco’s demonstration, she felt pretty confident. The slicing was happening. Her fingers were not part of the slicing. And she was able to get right to the end of the carrot without any trouble.

“Hey hey! Good job!” Marco gave her a squeeze and a little kiss on the cheek, then stood back and left her to do another carrot on her own, which she did flawlessly – though, she thought, way too slow to be cool.

“That was pretty easy,” she had to admit.

“You’re picking it up fast, I’m impressed.”

“Good teacher, probably.” She set the knife down and gave Marco an appreciative kiss. “What’s next?”

“We could take another stab at that onion. Maybe with a little less fervor this time.”

Star held one of the traumatized onion halves in her hand and scowled at it, “I will destroy you.” She put it back down on the cutting board and was about to start on it when she felt like she was missing something.

“Hey, you’re too far away,” she hip-checked Marco, who was standing right next to her. She liked when he was holding her while she worked. “What if I need emergency help with the knife?”

“Aw, you want a big huggy security blanket?”

“Shut up. I like you. Come hug me while I cut things.”

Marco wrapped his arms around her from behind and gave her a soft kiss on the nape of her neck. “You’re adorable.”

“Shh. Am I doing this right?”

“You have to take the skin off first.” Marco mimed for her how to skin the onion and chop it up. “You might cry a bit, but be brave. Remember, knuckles on the flat of the blade.”

Marco watched while she took a few slices off the onion, then stopped her when she got to the hump, “Okay now you want to flip the onion around so the blade doesn’t slide towards your hand.”

Star tried to comply, but Marco stopped her because she got the orientation wrong. He guided her hand to rotate the wedge in the right direction, “Alright you’re good, keep going.”

Star’s eyes filled to bursting with tears, but she managed to keep them from running down her cheeks while she finished chopping the onion. She wiped her face with her forearm and lamented, “Onions are the worst, Marco.”

“Just wait until you have to cut up hot peppers. You’ll long for onions.”

Marco guided Star through preparing the rest of the ingredients, showing her how to crush minced garlic with the side of the blade, how to slice and dice tomatoes with smooth slicing motions, and how to finely julienne the basil. By the end of it, Star was feeling pretty confident in what she was doing, almost like a real cook. She was even cutting things a bit faster, she thought. And maybe she was having a little fun.

She was eager to get to the cooking part of cooking, so Marco got her started with the balsamic reduction. It had quite a powerful smell. She wasn’t sure how this was supposed to improve the steak at all, but by now she had committed to submit to Marco’s prowess in the kitchen. While she was stirring the bubbling saucepan, she had to ask him, “How do you know how to do all this stuff?”

“Mostly from making dinner for the fam for the last few years. They’re letting me live here free of charge, you know? So I clean the house, babysit little MP, and cook meals a few times a week. It’s the least I can do. And _as you know_, when I do things, I like to do them right.”

“To an adorable fault.”

“Guilty. I like to watch a lot of cooking videos and find fun recipes and stuff, and just… practice.”

“Ah ha, so you weren’t born a culinary genius.”

“No dude. No, I have almost burned this house to the ground like five times. I am intimately familiar with the fire extinguisher,” Marco pointed to the massive red canister mounted to the wall.

“Oh, those are for _fires_. I totally thought they were just fun foam blasters.”

“Star you are eighteen, you have no right to not know how a fire extinguisher works.”

“Pull the pin, squeeze the thing, squeal with joy. What’s there to know?”

Marco sighed, and Star told him she was just teasing him. “But they _are _fun for blasting around on chairs. Not that I would know. Since that would be… a crime?”

“Yes Star, that would be a crime.”

“Right so obviously I never did that because crime is bad and I don’t do crimes.”

All their prep done, it was time to cook. Star dropped the pasta in the boiling water, metered the sauce’s ingredients into a saucepan, and heaved a cast iron skillet onto the stove to get it preheated for the steak.

While the cast iron was warming up, she brushed the balsamic glaze on the seasoned meat. Then when the pan was ready, she gently lowered the steaks to sizzle in the heat.

While she stirred the sauce around, Marco explained, “Cast iron is kind of magical. When the steak is ready to be flipped, it’ll come off the pan easily. Then just keep flipping it and brushing the glaze on until it looks nice. If you want to be precise, there’s a thermometer around here…” Marco dug around in a drawer and pulled out a fancy looking electronic device with a metal probe. “Poke the thing in the meat. It’s done around 130°.”

“That’s pretty sciencey for a kitchen.”

“Well you use the sciencey tools to boost your kitchen senses. Eventually you won’t need the thermometer. But I always use it. Food poisoning is the enemy, Star. Always be food safe.” Marco gestured to the iron skillet, “It’s probably about ready to be flipped by now.”

Juggling flipping the steak with stirring the sauce and monitoring the pasta felt like a lot. She was worried she’d mess something up with all this going on, but with Marco there, she was sure everything would be fine. He explained what a simmer looks like and reminded her to reduce the heat on the sauce when the time was right. When the steaks came off the iron, he told her why you need to let steaks sit for a while after cooking. Then when she fumbled a bit with tossing the pasta in the sauce, he showed her the right angle to hold the pan to get everything to hop back in after each toss. It was a lot to take in, but he made it all pretty easy to digest. The way he was letting her do everything was really helping. He was a pretty good teacher when he wasn’t trying to Glossaryck her into uncovering the hidden secrets of the kitchen or whatever.

And before she knew it, there were two plates at the dining room table – each with a meal _she’d_ cooked. Like, for real. Like a fancy chef in a restaurant. And it actually looked pretty good. And smelled great. She threw her apron on the counter next to the pile of dirty pots and pans, and then happily sat down with Marco to enjoy the fruits of her labor.

Marco’s first bite was accompanied by a happy note, “Wow. Star this is great. You did really well.”

“Oh stop. You did most of the work.” Star tried some of the dish too and found it remarkably tasty. Fresh, light, and full of flavor. Way better than any microwave dinner. Better than a lot of what came out of the royal kitchen, actually. And, supposedly, healthy?

Marco insisted, “I didn’t lift a finger.”

“Well I couldn’t have done it this well without you.”

Marco finished a few more thoughtful mouthfuls before he asked, “You think you could do it again?”

“I dunno. Maybe. With a recipe.”

“Do you _want_ to do it again? Next week? All on your own this time?”

“The same meal?”

“Yeah, it turned out great. And if you make a dish enough times, you don’t need the recipe anymore, it just kind of gets baked into you.”

Ah. It sounded a lot like learning spells. Reading out of books, taking careful guidance from mentors, practicing the same thing over and over again, until one day it just comes naturally without even thinking about it. She _was_ quite good at spellcasting. Maybe she’d be good at cooking too? Maybe this was her undiscovered calling in a life after Magic.

She agreed, “Alright, I’ll do it. Next week. Dinner at my place. I’ll shuffle the staff out of the kitchen whether my mom likes it or not.”

“Awesome.”

After they finished their plates, the two of them washed and dried the dishes together, then settled in under the covers of Marco’s bed to watch more _Death Match Kitchen_ on his laptop.

Star ran her hand lovingly over Marco’s chest while they watched. She hadn’t felt this good about making something in a while. She reflected on how lucky she was to have him, pushing her to be better, sharing his interests with her. She curled into him a bit, then took his head by the scruff and pulled him in for a kiss. “Thanks for tonight,” she breathed softly.

Marco pressed his forehead into hers and stared into her eyes with a look warm enough to melt butter. “Love you.”

The show faded into the background while they enjoyed the time they had before Marco’s family returned. And though they were hardly paying attention to it, they managed to catch up to the most recent episode of the series. The host ended the season with a coy smile and a reminder that the next season was going to be a very special tournament – The Battle Royal.

“We’re calling princes, princesses, and first-children from all over the planet to compete. It’s a nail-biting, world-changing, all-heirs battle – next time on _Death Match Kitchen_. Until then, _stay sharp, or get dead_.”

The lovers pulled themselves away from each other for a moment to stare in disbelief at the screen, then they locked eyes, filled with excitement.

“Should I!?”

“Yes! You’d be great!”

“No! But maybe! I wonder who they’ll have on there. Tom? Tom for sure. He’d probably be tough competition. I could probably mop the floor with Pony Head though. I don’t know any of your human royalty, are they good in the kitchen?”

“Doubtful.”

Star let out a dramatic evil chuckle. “Ho-ho-ho… With my secret weapon at my side, they’ll never know what hit them.”

“A thermometer?”

Star scowled at him jokingly, closed his laptop, and leaned in to whisper in his ear, “It’s you, you goof,” before returning her full focus to showing him how much she loved him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #### Recipe & Cooking References:
> 
> [allrecipes.com - Pasta Pomodoro](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/23847/pasta-pomodoro/)
> [bonnappetit.com - Spaghetti Pomodoro](https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/basically-spaghetti-pomodoro)
> [tasteofhome.com - Cooking Steak on Cast Iron](https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/cast-iron-steak/)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally intended this to be a much shorter one-off, but then I had the misfortune of being struck with the idea that it might be fun to have a tournament-style cooking show arc with Star and friends. How would a powerless princess and her supportive boyfriend fare against all the supernatural royals of Mewni and the cutthroat rulers of Earth?
> 
> Stay tuned until [never] to find out.
> 
> \- [AR](https://aphantaray.tumblr.com)


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